Briones. Father Pedro looked hastily around for another figure, but it
was not there.
"Gentlemen," began Cranch, in his practical business way, "I reckon
you all know we've come here to identify a young lady, who"--he
hesitated--"was lately under the care of Father Pedro, with a foundling
picked up on this shore fifteen years ago by an Indian woman. How this
foundling came here, and how I was concerned in it, you all know. I've
told everybody here how I scrambled ashore, leaving that baby in the
dingy, supposing it would be picked up by the boat pursuing me. I've
told some of you," he looked at Father Pedro, "how I first discovered,
from one of the men, three years ago, that the child was not found by
its father. But I have never told any one, before now, I KNEW it was
picked up here.
"I never could tell the exact locality where I came ashore, for the fog
was coming on as it is now. But two years ago I came up with a party of
gold hunters to work these sands. One day, digging near this creek, I
struck something embedded deep below the surface. Well, gentlemen, it
wasn't gold, but something worth more to me than gold or silver. Here it
is."
At a sign the alcalde unlocked the doors and threw them open. They
disclosed an irregular trench, in which, filled with sand, lay the
half-excavated stern of a boat.
"It was the dingy of the Trinidad, gentlemen; you can still read her
name. I found hidden away, tucked under the stern sheets, mouldy and
water-worn, some clothes that I recognized to be the baby's. I knew
then that the child had been taken away alive for some purpose, and
the clothes were left so that she should carry no trace with her.
I recognized the hand of an Indian. I set to work quietly. I found
Sanchicha here, she confessed to finding a baby, but what she had done
with it she would not at first say. But since then she has declared
before the alcalde that she gave it to Father Pedro, of San Carmel, and
that here it stands--Francisco that was! Francisca that it is!"
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